Monday, March 9, 2015

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Director John Madden had the wonderful
characters from the initial The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel played
by the same world-class cast with the delicious additions of Richard Gere and
David Strathairn…even one of the same writers, Ol Parker.

So, what was the problem with The Second
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?

I can only surmise it was the exclusion of
the other writer from the first film, Deborah Moggach, who, probably, added the
uplifting spirit of the first film.

This effort is a downer with the focus on the
young hotelier played, erratically, by Dev Patel.Instead of endearing, as he had been, the
character is annoying and, despite the Bollywood ending, leaves one feeling he
will, eventually, divorce and become a Hindi Donald Trump.

The saving grace is that this is a
multi-character film and the other stories are played against the negative
spirit inflicted by the writer.That’s
what real talent can do.

I give The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
a 3 out of 5, but feel cheated out of what it should have been.

About Me

Brian Porzak: I am a cinephile who likes to view films with a live audience. My taste runs the gamut, including indies, studio films, foreign films and most all genres. Because I see so many films, friends often ask me what to see. So, I thought I'd blog about what is worth seeing or not. As a writer/filmmaker myself, I hope to give a more uplifting perspective than the typical critic. Filmmaking is tremendously difficult. Just because some problems might exist in a particular work does not, necessarily, destroy its enjoyability and I think that is necessary to point out to would-be viewers.
See www.Aix-en-Film.com